A Jar of Mustard

Another Christmas is approaching with fast, noisy steps... And like every other Christmas for the last ten years, my heart bleeds with longing...

Yes, I have my children and my friends in this country where I had build a home away from home, but it is not home. There is no snow like a white blanket covering the Earth, there are no snowflakes dancing in the air in a frosty night... There are no children knocking on the door to sing carols old as time, there are no bells from snow carriages pulled by horses... And more then anything else, I don't have my parents and my siblings with me to decorate the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, joking and singing and drinking boiled wine with cinnamon... There is none of my mother's cooking, and no laughter in the kitchen as more and more dishes are prepared...

Another Christmas is coming, and my heart bleeds for all of those lost things that I had barely noticed once... I dream of the old decorations that went up a real fir tree, that smelled of winter and forest, those decorations that were taken out of dusty boxes year after year... I dream of my father putting the star on top of the tree and the laughter as we tried to untangle the lights... I dream of sitting next to the tree with my brother, late into the night, and talking about the year that has passed and the hopes for the year to come... My mum pretending to be Santa late after dark on Christmas Eve and the jokes and teasing as presents were unwrapped... I even miss the crazy days of cleaning the house, before the crazy days of cooking with my mum, before the decorated table nearly breaking under the weight of all those dishes...   I miss siting with my mum and discussing the Christmas menu, pondering over each dish... I miss the carols on old LP disks...

After ten years away from Christmas, I miss it more then anything... Yes, in this home away from home, I made the Christmas tree at the beginning of December with my daughters... The tree is plastic and the decorations mostly new... And the carols played on YouTube, in English, chosen by my eldest daughter... Yes, I had made the menu with my daughter, as once upon a time my mother did with me... And yes, I went to the craziness of cleaning, and buying presents, and buying all the ingredients for the feast to come... But I had done it on my own, without the laughter I once shared, as I will do all the cooking... And yes, presents will be unwrapped under the tree, with laughter and hopefully delight, and there will be a dinner feast with lots of foods... And in between those dishes, there will be some, highly inappropriate for the hot Australian summer, that remind me of home, those dishes that will find their way on the table of every other family in my far away land... But it is not home...

As I will be cooking, my soul will be longing for my mother's kitchen, and my father's jokes as he photographs the dishes, and my brother's hunger, and my sister's beauty... I will be cooking and I will dream again, for yet another year, of doing it for my entire family, daughters and parents and siblings...

But I can never have my Christmas at home, no matter how much my soul longs for it...

Today, with an over full shopping trolley, as I was dashing madly from one shop to another with a typed up list in my hand, I stopped at the butchers... And I saw a jar of mustard... The colors reminded me of the one my mother buys, and I looked closer... And looked again at the writing, not daring to believe... But yes, the writing was in the language of my childhood... And I picked it up, still not daring to believe, and looked again... It was indeed made there, high up in my mountains... I could feel my smile creeping on my tired face... It was home. A tiny, tiny piece of home... I might not have my loved ones close, I might not have the carols of my childhood, or the puffy and cold white snow, there might not be any children knocking on my door, but along with my daughters and my memories, I will have this little piece of home... And as I will be mixing that mustard in the dishes I am cooking, I will have something of home into it... And it does bring my family closer... Just a tiny bit...

Somehow, from all the presents that will find their way under my tree, this simple jar of mustard is the best present I could have found in this land where I had built my home... Because it is a piece of the home of my soul, the home I am longing for, painfully, every Christmas... I could have never believed that I will find happiness in a jar of mustard... But for me, it made Christmas more real... more Christmas...